Displaying items by tag: Artists

Now’s the Time: Recent Acquisitions brings together highlights from the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum’s ever-growing collection of contemporary art. Ending on January 2, 2013, the exhibition features works that have been acquired by the institution over the past five years and illustrates how painting, sculpture, and photography have evolved since the 1970s. While spotlighting the museum’s newest holdings, Now’s the Time also shows how the institution’s acquisitions have grown more inclusive in recent years and features works from a wide variety of artists and explores a range of ideas and perspectives.

The exhibition features works from both established and emerging artists including Ai Weiwei (b. 1957), William Cordova (b. 1971), Anish Kapoor (b. 1954), Barbara Kruger (b. 1945), and Lyle Ashton Harris (b. 1965).

The five million tourists who visit the Sistine Chapel every year pose a threat to the delicate frescoes that adorn its walls. A number of important Renaissance artists contributed to the Chapel’s paintings including Sandro Botticelli (circa 1445-1510), Pietro Perugino (circa 1446/1450-1523), and Michelangelo (1475-1564), who painted 12,000 square feet of the chapel’s ceiling between 1508 and 1512 including his masterpiece, The Last Judgment (1535-1541).

The Vatican’s director announced that visitors will be vacuumed and cooled down before entering the chapel in an effort to reduce any potential damage, as dust, temperature, and humidity are known to be harmful to the paintings' surfaces. The heat and dirt tracked in by the high volume of visitors has been blamed for layers of grime that have accumulated on the chapel’s frescoes over the years so Vatican officials will lay out carpet before the entrance and install suction vents as well as lower temperatures inside.

Officials hope that these preventative measures will keep the frescoes intact for the enjoyment of future generations.

Inventing Abstraction, 1910-1925 opened on December 23 at the Museum of Modern Art in New York and celebrates the bold art movement that swept across mediums and continents during the first half of the twentieth century. Severing ties with the realistic, practical images that dominated western art, abstraction infiltrated everything from sculpture and painting to poetry, music, and film.

Inventing Abstraction brings together over 350 works including paintings, stained glass, needlepoint, film, sculpture, and illustrated books. Organized by Leah Dickerman, a curator in MoMA’s painting and sculpture department, and Masha Chlenova, a curatorial assistant, the show includes many pieces that are on loan from outside museums.

Inventing Abstraction features works by Marsden Hartley (1877-1943), Marcel Duchamp (1887-1968), Piet Mondrian (1872-1944), Wassily Kandinsky (1866-1944), and many others. While extremely comprehensive, the exhibition draws connections between artists and illustrates the development of abstraction over time.

Opening on Sunday, December 16 at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Portrait of Spain: Masterpieces from the Prado, will present over 100 masterpieces from one of the world’s most renowned collections of European paintings. Spanning from the 16^th century through the 19^th century, the exhibit explores the evolution of painting in Spain through the works of artists such as Francisco de Goya (1746-1828), El Greco (1541-1614), and Diego Velázquez (1599-1660). There will also be works on view by non-Spanish artists who influenced the country’s artistic development including Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640), Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo (1727-1804), and Titian (circa 1488-1576).

The exhibition marks the first time that Madrid’s Museo Nacional del Prado has lent such a considerable selection from their permanent collection to a museum in the United States. The loan is part of a new initiative by the museum to broaden access to its illustrious holdings.

The works, which include both paintings and works on paper, are mainly courtly and spiritual paintings that explore the realms of society, culture, politics, and religion in Spain. The exhibit was previously on view at the Queensland Art Gallery in Brisbane, Australia, but ended its run last month. Portrait of Spain will be on view at the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston through March 31.

100 years after the seminal Armory Show in New York City, The Heckscher Museum of Art presents Modernizing America: Artists of the Armory Show. On view through April 14, 2013, the exhibition features works from the museum’s permanent collection and explores the show that changed the country’s perception of modern art.

Organized by the Association of American Painters and Sculptors, the Armory Show, officially titled the International Exhibition of Modern Art, took place at the 69^th Regiment Armory and introduced radical works of art to the public; a far cry from the realistic art they were accustomed to. Artists, critics, and patrons were presented with European works that boasted avant-garde sensibilities and spanned genres like Futurism, Cubism, and Fauvism. The show transformed the landscape of modern art and inspired an unmatched growth and progression in American art.

Works on view include paintings by Marguerite Zorach (1877-1968) and Arthur B. Carles (1882-1952); works on paper by Joseph Stella (1877-1946), Oscar Bluemner (1867-1938), and Charles Sheeler (1883-1965); and sculptures by artists such as Walter Kuhn (1877-1949).

The Heckscher Museum of Art was founded in 1920 by August Heckscher in Huntington, New York. The museum boasts over 2,000 works and focuses mainly on American landscape paintings as well as American and European modernism and photography.

The anxiously awaited event, Art Basel, begins tonight, December 5, with a VIP preview and runs through Sunday, December 9. Now in its 11^th year, Art Basel has become a defining event in the art world and each year the city of Miami is taken over by collectors, curators, artists, celebrities, and art enthusiasts as well as a host of art fairs.

Taking place at the Miami Beach Convention Center, Art Basel features over 260 big-name galleries from around the world and exhibits works by more than 2,000 artists of the 20^th and 21^st centuries. Renowned for its support of young and emerging artists and galleries, Art Basel includes performance art, public art projects, lectures, and video art installations. Some exhibitor highlights include Acquavella Galleries, Mary Boone Gallery, Gagosian Gallery, Hauser & Wirth, Lisson Gallery, and White Cube, among many others.

Regarded as Miami art week’s anchor fair, Art Miami got a head start on Art Basel and hosted a VIP preview on December 4 at the Art Miami Pavilion in the city’s Wynwood Arts District. The fair, which features modern and contemporary offerings from more than 125 international galleries, runs from December 5 through December 9. While Art Basel tends to be spotlighted during Miami’s art week, Art Miami is the original and longest-running contemporary art fair to be held in the area with 23 years under its belt. Exhibitors include Douglas Dawson Gallery, Eli Klein Fine Art, Haunch of Venison, Hollis Taggart Gallery, Jerald Melberg Gallery, Michael Goedhuis, and Waterhouse & Dodd.

This year, Art Miami coincides with the inaugural CONTEXT art fair, which features 50 galleries representing emerging and mid-career artists. Located in an ultramodern pavilion adjacent to Art Miami, CONTEXT boasts indoor and outdoor projects as well as solo artist installations, curated projects, and multimedia exhibits. Between Art Miami and CONTEXT, there will be over 200,000 square feet of exhibition space and over 250 participating galleries.

Another highlight of the city’s art week is Scope Miami, which opened on December 4 with a VIP preview and will run through December 9 at a new location in the midtown arts district. With a 100,000 square foot pavilion, Scope features 20 new galleries as part of its “Breeder Program” and 85 established exhibitors. Besides modern and contemporary art, there will be design, music, and fashion offerings.

Pulse Miami opens to the public on December 6 and runs through December 9 at The Ice Palace Studios. One of Art Basel’s many satellite fairs, Pulse is in its eighth year and features 86 international galleries exhibiting works on paper, paintings, sculptures, performances, installations, and video art. Pulse also includes its signature series, Pulse Projects, a selection of installations proposed by galleries and not-for-profit institutions. This year’s Pulse Projects includes a short film by Zackary Drucker shown earlier this year at MoMA PS1, marble installations courtesy of Venske & Spanle and Margaret Thatcher Projects, and a special screening of street artist Invader’s Art 4 Space, courtesy of Jonathan LeVine Gallery.

While there are countless fairs, events, parties, concerts, and openings happening in Miami this week, one not to be missed affair is the Masterpieces from the Berardo Collection exhibit at the Gary Nader Art Centre. Opening on December 5, the show features pieces from one of the finest modern and contemporary art collections in existence. Hand-picked from the private holdings of Joe Berardo, a Portuguese mogul, the 110 works are worth $500 million. Featured artists include Francis Bacon, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Alexander Calder, Salvador Dali, Marcel Duchamp, Max Ernst, Roy Lichtenstein, Pablo Picasso, Diego Rivera, Cy Twombly, Andy Warhol, and many more.

Over fifty major works totaling about $64 million were offered as payment to the UK for nearly $40 million worth of inheritance tax that accumulated between 2010 and 2012. Those in control of the estates of authors, artists, and collectors have been allowed to use cultural and historical artifacts to pay the tax since 1910.

The UK has recently received a number of masterpieces including two oil portraits of aristocratic families by Sir Joshua Reynolds, a renowned 18^th century English artist. One portrait will be placed in the Tate and the other will go to the Bristol Museum and Art Gallery. Other works include two landscapes by JMW Turner; an oil sketch by Peter Paul Rubens titled The Triumph of Venus that will be placed in Cambridge’s Fitzwilliam Museum; a work by Italian 17^th century master Guernico that has been allocated to the National Gallery; and four sculptures and three works on paper by Barbara Hepworth.

The ability to donate significant works to pay off inheritance tax has introduced a number of remarkable pieces to the UK’s galleries and museums, bringing monumental works out from behind closed doors and into the public arena.

Considered one of the world’s most groundbreaking contemporary artists, Cy Twombly evaded classification while remaining culturally and artistically relevant from the early 1950s to the present. On Thursday, Gagosian Gallery mounted the dual tribute exhibitions, Cy Twombly: Last Paintings and Cy Twombly: A Survey of Photographs 1954–2011. The show will remain on view through December 22, 2012.

The eight untitled paintings are closely related to the Camino Real group that appeared at Gagosian Paris’ inaugural exhibition in 2010. Featuring bold colors and sweeping, gestural brushwork, the paintings exude the raw energy that typified Twombly’s work. Last Paintings opened in Los Angeles earlier this year and traveled to Hong Kong before opening in New York.

A Survey of Photographs features everything from early studio images taken in the 1950s to a group of landscapes taken in St. Barths in 2011, the year of Twombly’s death. While mainly regarded as a painter, Twombly’s photographic work has been the subject of a number of major exhibitions since 2008. Gagosian’s exhibition is the most comprehensive of its kind to take place in the United States to date.

Since 2009, there has been chatter that the Vatican would have its own pavilion at the Venice Biennale. It has finally been confirmed that they will take part in the contemporary art fair’s 55^th year. A vice president of the Vatican’s Holy See promoting committee attended a Biennale press conference on October 26.

The Biennale, which will take place from June 1 to November 24, 2013, welcomes eight new countries to the upcoming fair including the Bahamas, Kuwait, the Maldives, and Paraguay. While the Vatican has kept the works they plan to exhibit under wraps, an Italian newspaper reported that they will feature less than 10 men and women from around the world. They also said that a mix of established and emerging artists on view will explore the first 11 chapters of the Book of Genesis.

Curated by Massimiliano Gioni, the Italian-born associate director of the New Museum in New York, the Biennale’s headline exhibitions will take place at the Palazzo delle Esposizioni and the Arsenale. Gioni plans to incorporate older pieces from the late 19^th and 20^th century into the fair.

The art world can be an intimidating place for an aspiring collector with a modest budget. Artsicle is here to help. Founded by Alex Tryon, 26, and Scott Carleton, 27, Artsicle is an online venture that rents inexpensive art at a low rate. Removing haughty galleries and astronomical price tags from the equation allows a new generation of collectors to figure out what they like. By allowing this often dismissed demographic to explore art collecting, they may be more inclined to make major investments further down the line when their pockets have a little more padding.

Artiscle launched in December 2010 and featured the work of 10 artists. Within a few weeks Tryon and Carleton decided to shift the site’s focus to renting rather than buying. The company went from shipping about 30 works a month to 100. Artsicle now feature 150 artists and has 3,000 works in its online inventory.

New clients take a quiz when they land on artsicle.com that reveals their visual predilections. From there, Artsicle assembles a portfolio that is meant to appeal to the visitor based on their likes and dislikes generated by the quiz. It costs anywhere from $25 to $65 a month to rent an artwork depending on the size. Clients can choose to renew the rental if they’re fond of the work or they can trade it in for a new piece. Buying is also an option and works usually run anywhere from $500 to $2,500. Artsicle keeps 50 percent of the rental price and 30 percent of sale.

As stated on their website, “Artsicle makes it accessible, affordable, and fun to get started collecting.”